Nine Days Later
by Coraxes
Summary: It doesn't take Bonnie and Damon long to figure out what they're doing. [S6 AU. Sequel to my other fic, "Twenty Years and One Day."]


**A/N:** This is a sequel to "Twenty Years and One Day," and will make zero sense if you have not read that already.

* * *

 **Day 1.**

Almost since the first day she and Damon were trapped in the prison world, Bonnie had daydreamed about what the reunion would be like, once they finally made it out. She pictured Caroline and Elena crying, Jeremy sweeping her off her feet. She pictured them telling her that it was okay and she could rest now and she had done enough for them.

Weeks in the prison world had dragged into months and Bonnie had started to think things like, _When I get out I'll tell Elena about how the light changed during the eclipse, how it's the only time I ever really think that I'm in another dimension._ Or, _When I get out I'll tell Caroline about how ridiculous Damon's jokes are. I'll ask Stefan if his singing has always been this bad._ Tearful reunions were old, so she fantasized about being happy and surrounded by friends instead.

When she and Damon actually got back, Bonnie got both, and it was suffocating. Her fantasies had never pointed out how _overwhelming_ it could be, being surrounded by friends after months of being almost alone.

She and Damon were swept up in a storm of hugs and tears when they walked through the door of the boarding house. Someone—Stefan, maybe—called the rest of the gang, and they were hustled to the couch so that everyone could catch up. There were a few curveballs: Elena having her memories erased, Jeremy running away. A few instances of awkward eye contact and slightly less awkward hand contact. A moment where Caroline asked, "But what about you guys, what _happened_ in there?" and Bonnie and Damon looked at each other, the corner of Damon's mouth twitched up, and he said, "Unless you count being stuck with Jo's psycho twin, nothing exciting," so that was that.

Once the catching-up bit was over and everyone had stopped crying, Bonnie excused herself, taking her glass of wine with her.

Caroline stopped her with a hand on her shoulder as she tried to squeeze out the door. "You okay?" she asked, frowning a little, and Bonnie offered a smile in response.

"Yeah," she said. "It's just…been a day. I need some air."

Caroline nodded, squeezed Bonnie's shoulder, and let her go.

Bonnie made her way to the back porch, leaned against the railing, and took deep breaths of the cold fall air. She had lived with the hum of insects as background noise for her whole life; they seemed so _loud_ now, after months without them.

"Was that even real?" she asked the woods, but no helpful nature spirit appeared to talk to her about it, so Bonnie addressed the question in her own head instead.

It had to have been real. She'd been messed up in a lot of ways, but her memories didn't lie to her. She and Damon had travelled twenty years in the future. They'd met their daughter and talked to their future married part-witch part-vampire selves. Maybe two hours ago, he had kissed her in the forest—in _this_ dimension, _this_ time.

And she wasn't telling anyone any of it. Even though, for one thing, their respective Gilberts had given up on them.

What the hell was up with that, anyway? She couldn't bring herself to care about Elena erasing her memories; she wasn't _that_ unselfish. But Jeremy _giving up_? Just taking off out of town? After _everything_ she'd done for him?

Bonnie scowled into her wineglass. Maybe she was being a hypocrite, but she'd come back with the intent to at least try with him, even if they were destined to fail. But he couldn't even stick around to wait for her.

And the thing was—she didn't even really care if he came back after this. So what kind of person did _that_ make her?

A very confused one, Bonnie decided, and stared off into the dark.

"Hey, witchy."

…Why was she not surprised.

"Hey." She scooted closer to one of the posts connecting the porch railing to the roof, leaving enough room for Damon to stand next to her. He mimicked her posture—although since he was so much taller, he ended up uncomfortably hunched over—and for a moment they just basked in the quiet.

Damon ruined it, of course.

"All the mushy crap in there not doing it for you?" he asked, twitching his head back towards the boarding house.

Bonnie snorted. "I saw you hugging Stefan, you know."

"Hey. I was _ambushed._ "

" _And_ Ric."

"God, you're annoying," Damon said fondly. "I'm so glad I'm not stuck with you anymore."

Bonnie grinned at him. He grinned back. Neither of them stated the obvious.

The eye contact went on for a little too long, until Bonnie took a drink of wine just so she wouldn't be looking at him anymore. Staring at Damon used to be something…innocent. In the prison world when she checked out his ungodly bedhead or grinned at the dumb faces he pulled, she just thought he was cute. Now she couldn't help but remember what his face looked like right before he kissed her, the way his eyes were scary intense until they fluttered shut.

"So…Elena erased her good memories of you." From the corner of her eye, Bonnie saw Damon frown. It wasn't really angry, though. More confused.

"So," he replied, in the same tone, "Jeremy gave up."

It felt like it should be easy. In the future, they would get married. In the now, they were single—love quadrangle resolved. All they needed was a final kiss as the music swelled behind them.

But this was Damon, and this was Bonnie, and this was _them,_ and of course it couldn't be that simple. "I don't want to jump into anything," she said, all in a rush. "We just got back and I need to think. You're my best friend and I love you but if we do this now then it's just going to feel like we're each other's consolation prize, and I can't do that, I don't want to wonder if we'd be together if Elena had her memories."

She thought he was going to argue, or at the very least make some smartass comment that she'd have to elbow him for. Instead he looped an arm around her neck and kissed her temple. "You know I'm all for jumping in headfirst and making a mess of things," he said, "but that's not a bad idea."

"I know. It was my idea." Bonnie leaned into the comfortable warmth—okay, room-temperature, but still warmer than the outside—of Damon's side.

"Because your ideas are brilliant and not at all prone to getting you killed."

"Shut _up,_ " Bonnie said. Her brainpower had been sucked away for the day, all used up in escaping prison dimensions and rescuing her future self; she didn't have a lot left to spend on comebacks.

"Such hurtful words to the man you love," Damon said with an exaggerated frown, pressing a hand to his unbeating heart.

She stuck out her tongue at him. Damon just laughed.

 **Day 4.**

"So," said Caroline, "spill."

Bonnie froze with her burger halfway to her mouth. Caroline somehow managed to look intimidating as she chewed her salad. "Spill what?" Bonnie asked, too late to sound convincing.

"Whatever happened in the prison world that you aren't telling us," said Caroline.

Bonnie pursed her lips. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said primly. Really, she should have known an intervention was coming. Bonnie wasn't great at lying, especially to Elena and Caroline, but over the last few years they'd all been so busy and overwhelmed that they didn't call her on it. According to the people in the land of the living, the last few months had been eerily quiet, no threat on the horizon, no rumors of new bad guys—so of course Caroline had noticed Bonnie had been on edge. Just her luck.

"Damon already told Stefan about it, but he says it's private and that if I want to know I should ask you myself." She arched one eyebrow and gave Bonnie her classic world-domination smirk. "So. Spill."

Bonnie frowned, nose wrinkling.

It wasn't like they had agreed to lie; lying had just been easier, especially when they had first gotten home and hadn't known what to make of it. But they had had a few days to process, and Bonnie was coming around to the idea of her-and-Damon and maybe Damon had wanted some advice. Okay, so it stung a little, so maybe it felt like that should be private—

But Stefan already knew, and honestly, outside perspective would be amazing. Even if Caroline was judging the hell out of her by the end of it.

"So, when we used the Ascendant to get out of the prison world, we took a little…detour," Bonnie began. "To, uh, the future."

Caroline took that in stride. "How'd that happen?"

"My daughter from the future apparently needed some help." Bonnie gulped. "Well, um, _our_ daughter from the future."

"…You better mean your daughter with _me_ from the future," said Caroline, "because that makes more sense than the alternative."

Bonnie shrugged. She couldn't quite meet Caroline's eyes, so she grabbed a fry and swirled it in her ketchup. "Not exactly."

Caroline glared at the ceiling. Whatever god or goddess she was blaming, honestly, Bonnie was right there with her. "I had faith in you, Bonnie. I really thought you'd be the one to escape the Curse of Damon's Dick."

"I haven't succumbed _yet,_ " Bonnie said, offended despite herself. She'd made it _years_ without having a thing for Damon, thank you very much. Even her attraction to him was tempered with moments where she realized what a horrible idea making a move on the guy would be.

"Yet," Caroline repeated darkly. "Seriously, Bonnie, are you dating him just because you saw some future that might not even be yours?"

Bonnie held up a finger. "One, we're not dating. We're friends." Another finger. "Two, it was definitely our future. It was a closed loop, Caroline. The older us knew everything that was going to happen—they remembered everything we did." Another finger. "Three, again, _not dating._ We just got ditched by these people who were supposed to be the great loves of our lives and it just…it wouldn't be good right now, you know?"

Caroline narrowed her eyes, considering. "Okay. Good."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Caroline slumped back in her booth. "Is it weird that I'm kind of relieved that they're over? I mean it's sad, and I don't want you to be hurt, but. We're supposed to be off in college having hookups every night, me and you and Elena, and instead we ended up falling into these big soul-crushing romances and they _all_ sucked."

Bonnie thought of the person that Elena had turned into when she was with Stefan and then Damon. How Caroline had been when she was with Tyler and in the middle of her thing with Klaus. How much of her self Bonnie had given and broken and sacrificed for Jeremy.

She didn't think it would be like that with Damon. It was so much easier to yell at him, to say no and stand up for herself in a way it wasn't with Jeremy or her other friends. And the Bonnie she had seen in the future still had pieces of herself left; she hadn't spent twenty years giving them away.

"It's not weird," said Bonnie. "I get it."

But, she was starting to realize, that didn't mean she didn't want a giant romance. Just maybe not the soul-crushing part.

"Still," said Caroline. "You and Damon. What the hell, Bonnie."

Bonnie shrugged. Her and Damon felt like it had been building for years and also like it had hit her out of nowhere. She couldn't explain it, either.

"Don't—" Caroline shrugged, making a face— "at me. Tell me the whole thing. How did it happen? Where was I in the future? How did you get back?"

Bonnie took a deep breath, and told her everything.

In the dark, Damon's phone light was blinding. He fumbled for it, one-handed, and checked the caller ID.

 _Perfect._ He grinned and pressed it to his ear. "Bon-bon," he said, tone not _nearly_ as nonchalant as he wanted it to be, and stretched."What's got you up at three A.M.?"

"Thinking," she said vaguely. If Damon closed his eyes he could picture the face that went with that tone of voice. She'd be biting her lip, staring into the distance or into a mug of tea. "What are you doing?"

"Mm, depends. What are you wearing?" Bonnie, sad to say, had never been into the whole sexy PJs thing. Not that she didn't look great in her usual ratty t-shirt and oversize boxers combo, but Damon could dream.

"Oh my god," she said. There was a rustle on the other side of the line, of clothes or maybe blankets. He hoped it was the former but thought it was probably the latter. "So, I talked to Caroline today."

Damon's grin widened—point for him. "Yeah, Stefan said you spilled the whole sordid story earlier. Figured it was only a matter of time." It had even been…not terrible, to tell Stefan about their little jaunt through time. Awkward, yeah, and Damon had left out the steamier details, but at the end of it Stefan had clapped him on the shoulder and said that he hoped Bonnie would be good for him.

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. "Wait, Stefan told you that I told Caroline first?"

"…Yeah?" There was no answer, so Damon added, "I'm not mad, witchy. Figured the whole secrecy thing couldn't go on forever."

"No, no, Damon. Caroline told me that you told Stefan first."

Damon stared at the ceiling, eyes wide with horror. And a little pride. "…We got played."

"We definitely got played," Bonnie agreed with a laugh.

"Never thought my perfect little bro would be capable of it," said Damon, with just the right amount of sarcasm—definitely present, but not so present that he sounded bitter. Probably.

Bonnie either didn't notice or (more likely) chose to ignore it. "You think they'll tell everyone else?"

"You care if they do?"

Damon cared a little bit, but only because he didn't think it was anyone else's business and he knew that if word got around everyone would want to weigh in on the situation like their opinion mattered. Only his and Bonnie's thoughts really counted.

And he would like to know what Elena thought. Just a little.

"Kind of," said Bonnie. "Everyone's going to know, but they're not going to _get_ it. You know? They weren't there."

Damon nodded, realized she couldn't see that, and just hummed agreement into the phone instead. "They'll deal. They've dealt with weirder."

"Not much."

Damon couldn't argue with that.

After a moment, Bonnie sighed. "There's another reason I called."

"Yeah?"

"I can't sleep." There was a thud and a creak of bedsprings, and when she spoke again, her voice sounded muffled, like she had her face in her pillow. "It's too empty here."

The offer was out of his mouth before he could rethink it. "Come over, then."

It was stupid. Bonnie had just said she didn't want to rush into things, and Damon had agreed—he didn't feel like playing second fiddle to little Gilbert any more than Bonnie liked the thought of being compared to Elena. Even if he was pretty sure, at this point, that there was no comparison.

But, hell. She was his best friend, and—what had her older self said? The whole trip thing didn't make her fall in love with him, but it had made her see it was a possibility. They had to start somewhere.

Bonnie let out a breath. She had been hoping he'd offer, Damon realized. It was technically three in the morning, but time had stopped really meaning anything to them a while back; they never kept a schedule in the prison dimension. "Thanks. I'll be over in a second."

He thought she meant to hang up, but instead Bonnie kept him on the phone, narrating what she was doing as she got dressed and drove over. Damon responded minimally, just closing his eyes and letting her voice wash over him.

What was wrong with them? They had spent months dreaming of the day when they could get rid of each other and finally talk to other people, and now here they were, incredibly, embarrassingly codependent. Not embarrassing enough to make him hang up, though, or to keep him letting her in.

"Oh, good, you put on a shirt," was the first thing she said when he opened the door.

Damon smirked. He remembered the first time in the prison dimension when she'd seen him walking around shirtless right after waking up; Bonnie had rolled her eyes and told him his pastiness was going to blind her if he didn't get dressed. "Scared you couldn't resist me otherwise?" he asked, leaning against the doorframe.

Bonnie stared at him for a long second, head tilted and eyes very wide.

Sometimes it hit him just how _striking_ Bonnie was, even now, with bags under her eyes and no makeup and in the rattiest t-shirt in the known universe. Maybe especially now—the fact that he was allowed to see her like this. Her eyes half-lidded, her hair wrapped in a scarf.

"I've made it this long," said Bonnie. Probably meant to be a joke, but it came out a little too honest, considering. "I'll, ah, take the guest room."

"See you in the morning, Bon," said Damon. He didn't tell her that he'd already cleaned out what had been _her_ room in the prison dimension. She'd find out on her own, after all.

"No pancakes," she said, with a squinty frown.

Damon grinned back. "I'll see what I can do."

 **Day 7.**

"Elena asked me if I thought she should get her memories back," said Bonnie, too casual to be genuine. They were in the middle of one of the X-Men movies—Damon had flat-out refused to watch anything made before 1994 when they got back—and Damon's head was in Bonnie's lap, the popcorn bowl balanced precariously on his chest so they could both reach it.

He forced himself to be casual, too, when he replied. It didn't take much forcing. "What did you say?"

"Something I…probably shouldn't have," Bonnie admitted.

"Something dirty, I hope."

She glared and smacked him lightly on the forehead. Damon pretended to wince. "I said that they were her memories, and if it were me I would want them."

Bonnie paused, chewing on her bottom lip. Her eyes flickered to Damon and he could feel the blood rushing to her face as well as he could see it, enough to get his mouth watering. Didn't help that he was really close to her femoral artery, like this. So easy to turn and sink his teeth in—

—Not that he would. "That's not so bad," he said, before he could lose his mind.

"But then I told her that if she was planning on getting back together with you because her memories were back, she shouldn't do it."

Damon blinked.

Bonnie cleared her throat. "So I guess I should ask—was I wrong? To tell her that?"

He'd had a week to think things over. He'd come to a few conclusions, but he wasn't a complete idiot, so he gave the question the thought that it deserved.

A part of Damon did want Elena to get her memories back. Not so that he could get back with her, but because it didn't seem fair that they had all this history and all Elena could remember of it was the parts that made him look the worst. Not that he hadn't done plenty to earn that, but—there was a context to it.

And he wanted her to remember because Damon was nothing if not petty, and he wanted her to feel bad for cutting him so spectacularly out of her life. For not fighting for him when she could have. Did that make him an asshole? Yeah, but he'd never claimed otherwise.

"You weren't wrong," he said. Damon reached up and caught Bonnie's hand, twining their fingers together with a minimum of awkward fumbling, and when she smiled down at him in response—hopeful and afraid all at once—Damon's breath caught. "I've been thinking."

" _That's_ a first."

"I'm trying to have a moment, okay? Don't ruin it."

Bonnie rolled her eyes, but nodded.

"I want to try this. Us, I mean. Not because Elena's forgotten about me or because of the road trip to the future." Maybe the road trip had been a contributing factor, but it wasn't the only reason. "Because you're my best friend, and I love you, and I think we could work."

Bonnie's smile was so soft and so bright that his chest just _ached,_ like his heart was trying to restart itself just for this, so Damon put on a cocky smirk and said, "Even if you _are_ the most annoying person in this dimension."

"You really know how to sweet-talk a girl," Bonnie said, and squeezed his hand. "If you're sure—and you better be sure—then…yeah. I'm in."

"Okay," said Damon, and his smirk morphed into something more genuine without his approval. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been at a loss for words, especially when it came to something like _this_ ; of course it would be Bonnie who managed to shut him up. "Good. That's—good."

"On one condition." She held up a finger. "I want to take this slow, alright? God knows we're involved enough in each other's lives already. I don't want us to get so wrapped up in each other that we ignore everyone else."

Didn't make much sense to _him_ —they were already pretty wrapped up in each other, and in Damon's experience _take it slow_ meant _no sex for way too long._

But he was over a hundred and fifty years old. He could wait. "If you insist," he said, with an exaggerated sigh.

 **Day 9.**

The problem with trying to "take it slow" with someone who you already loved and had lived with for months was that there was nowhere else to take it, so you just ended up having your sexual tension explode everywhere and dragging your new boyfriend into an alley for some pretty spectacular, pretty risky sex.

Or maybe that was just Bonnie.

"Oh my god," she said, and unfolded her legs from Damon's waist so she could drop to the ground. "That just happened." Her shoulders felt chafed from being pressed against the brick wall, and her legs felt _deliciously_ wobbly. Not the best sex of her life, maybe, but definitely the most exciting.

In an _alley._ Jesus. She'd say Damon was a terrible influence, but she did start it. Bonnie adjusted her skirt.

Damon did that thing where he tried to raise one eyebrow and accidentally raised both. "Not _exactly_ how I planned our first time to go, but…"

"Yeah? How'd you plan it?"

"More romance, less dumpster."

"More orgasms, less clothes?"

This was probably the most offended she had ever seen Damon look. Bonnie snickered to herself, and mentally saved the face he made. "You—don't tell me you didn't—"

"I did, but I was promised two at _least,_ " said Bonnie. She smirked at him. When they'd agreed to this thing she'd worried that picking on Damon might lose its fun, but as it turned out nothing had changed; they had just added making out to the list of things they occasionally did. And now sex.

Damon finished making himself presentable and offered her his arm, which Bonnie took delicately. "Let's go home, then," he said, "and I'll make it up to you."

Bonnie grinned to herself, quick and private while he led her out of the alley. "Home, huh?"

"Yeah. It's been a while since I've scandalized Stefan."

She shook her head and elbowed her idiot vampire boyfriend.

So, taking things slow was now off the table. Bonnie couldn't say she minded. After all, she knew they still had a long way to go from here.


End file.
